Storms and lightningLightning on Jupiter's night side, imaged by the Galileo orbiter in 1997The storms on Jupiter are similar to thunderstormson Earth. They reveal themselves via bright clumpy clouds about 1000 km in size, which appear from time to time in the belts' cyclonic regions, especially within the strong westward (retrograde) jets.[11]In contrast to vortices, storms are short-lived phenomena; the strongest of them may exist for several months, while the average lifetime is only 3–4 days.[11]They are believed to be due mainly to moist convection within Jupiter's troposphere. Storms are actually tall convective columns (plumes), which bring the wet air from the depths to the upper part of the troposphere, where it condenses in clouds. A typical vertical extent of Jovian storms is about 100 km; as they extend from a pressure level of about 5–7 bar, where the base of a hypothetical water cloud layer is located, to as high as 0.2–0.5 bar.[97]Storms on Jupiter are always associated with lightning. The imaging of the night–side

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